During the “Civic Activism – Arts for Social Change” regional training, group of change-makers consisting of young civic activists, socially engaged artists, LOJA team members, and trainers from North Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia, Greece, Germany, France and USA gathered in Ohrid from 12 to 17 of April to take part in the regional training. This workshop was one in a series of regional trainings that encourages active involvement of citizens and aims to build a new group of Transformers that together develop and support creative civic actions. The training is designed to encourage the use of artistic techniques to address real issues in local communities and to contribute in improving the quality of life in local communities. In addition to providing instruction and theory on civic and urban art techniques, the training also included the opportunity to simulate projects leading to the development actual civic activism related projects that are set to be implemented over the next few months.
The participants also had the opportunity to see examples of how local activist organizations (e.g. Centre LOJA, Eco Guerrilla, Partia e Forte and individual artists etc.) use various techniques in implementing their activities.
We also had opportunity to exchange with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Country Director for North Macedonia Mrs. Eva Ellereit and explore together the potetials and advanateges of regional collaboration.
The team of Centre LOJA and their trainers are very excited by the quality and innovativeness of the proposed initiatives and also by the commitment of participating youth for their active participation and change. The training also helped to provide support in helping these participants actualize their ideas developed during the workshop. This project is implemented by Centre LOJA and is supported by the partner organization Kurve Wustrow in frame of Civil Peace Service program (supported by German Government – BMZ) and some initiatives will be supported also by Goethe Institute Skoje.
More Regional! More LOJA more European!